Superintendent Joshua Starr in Montgomery County, Maryland, is searching for ways to measure students other than test scores. The district has commissioned Gallup to develop measures of social and emotional factors.
Sounds good but why not do what Sidwell Friends, Exeter, Andover, Lakeside Academy, and schools in Finland do: Trust professional judgment.
HuffPost reporter Joy Resmovits tweeted this:
“@Joy_Resmovits: Reformy source: “that sound you’re hearing is Joel Klein & @michellerhee’s heads exploding”/ Schools measuring ‘hope’ http://t.co/UMGoUMD71O”
Justin Hamilton, who used to be Duncan’s press secretary, responded in a tweet:
@justinhamilton: @Joy_Resmovits FACT CHECK: Joel Klein is 100% in favor of hope
Hamilton now works for Joel Klein.
Klein works for Rupert Murdoch.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
JK favors hope to siphon $$$$$ from taxpayers to bank acct.
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Also: amplify is creepily….leave our kids alone!
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Creepify….darn autocorrect!
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This country has lost its soul. Welll. look at the “so-called” leadership, which I call Management by Asshole (MBA-ers), Marketers like Gates, ALEC, Duncan, Obummer, Bieden, (need I go go on?) and even thier wives PRETENED to support our troops. And then there are the Zimmerman and Deedy trials…most disgustingly immoral and unjust.
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“why not do what Sidwell Friends, Exeter, Andover, Lakeside Academy, and schools in Finland do: Trust professional judgment.” I agree with this approach. the Staff proposal is part of the anti-intellectual political stuff; they refuse to hear what professional educators say and they don’t look at the decades of research literature that has been published. School effectiveness/effect studies
have identified 4 areas worthy of pursuit…. (a) concept of the self; (b) expectations related to goals or standards that are realistic; (c) academic self-concept; and (d) locus of control…. In psychology and education people like Rotter, Brookover, Coopersmith, Rosenberg, Cooper & Good, Rosenthal and Jacobsen, McDill and Rigsby have published research findings. The politicians will refuse to examine these studies or define operational measures because they have to “invent” something new and change the terminology. They call our terms from educational research “arcane” or “status quo” which is really an insult to the profession (or at least I feel that way.)
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Ignore my comment if it is distracting; but can we come up with an operational definition of hope?”
without looking at the research literature? Why hire Gallup?
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“, , , is searching for ways to measure students other than test scores.”
Well, he is “looking in all the wrong places” for something that doesn’t logically exist, the “measuring” of students “hope”.
Yep, paraphrasing comedian Lewis Black “I’m glad I did acid when I was younger to prepare myself for times like these”.
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…Gallup’s student survey is based on 40 years of social science research that suggests that “hope, engagement and well-being” are measurable, manipulable variables…
How can you manipulate thes variables? How to you, as a teacher, give a kid hope when they are homeless? when they don’t have enough to eat? when their parents don’t have jobs? when they are VERY worried about tests? How, I mean it HOW are we supposed to be teaching 30-35 kids all day and making them ALL constantly happy and hopeful? The natural state of being in a child is happy and hopeful but only when all their basic needs are being met and as has been said in this very blog time and time again it is POVERTY that effects students in school more than anything and that doesn’t make anyone very happy or hopeful.
Soon, I guarantee, we will see that the results of this Gallup Poll concluded that students in the free and reduced lunch program had lower levels of happiness and hope (big surprise)!
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I can think of two reasons that the head of Montgomary County schools might need a different way to measure the qualityof education (which I must say looks quite a bit better than my local district, but that is what wealth and scale can do) that is different from a pprivate high school.
first, If parents are not pleased with the quality of the education at fancy private schools, they have more options than parents at, for example, Magruder High School. Here is the service area map for Magruder: http://gis.mcpsmd.org/ServiceAreaMaps/MagruderHS.pdf
A second reason is that a private school need only convince the families of their students of the quality of the education. Public schools need to convince the community of the quality of the education, even members of the community that never step foot in a school.
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Joel Klein’s “hope” is illustrated in his actions. As NYC chancellor, he handed public school facilities over to bankrolled charters. His “hope” continues to be in obliterating the American public schools in favor of those who continue to pay him well toward this end.
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In Rehab, Counseling and Psychology for special education, our students read Martin Seligmans “Learned Optimism.” a book that I often give to friends and relatives. Since it is older now, I looked to see if there are current operational definitions of “hope”… (my post above covered older reference.) In his book Ungifted: “Intelligence Redefined” Scott Barry Kaufman cites “deliberate practice” as an essential component (related to the time on task research and practice that a chess player has to perform or a gifted musician). He also describes “grit” as a trait that is correlated with Conscientiousness (one of the big 5 that can be measured by OCEAN model). “Theory of hope” is related to agency (so this would relate back to the academic self concept, locus of control and earlier studies of school effects). Concepts that have legitimate pursuit in psychology or developmental psychology may get distorted in the popular press and we have the panaceas of “self esteem” that come through as waves from Psychology Today etc. and we end up with the cult of the eternal smile which is unrealistic. I don’t think when Seligman prepared “Learned Optimism” he was just pushing “positive psychology”. He had measurement questionnaires that we used in the graduate courses that seemed useful when looking at the 5 Trait OCEAN , or the Myers – Briggs (I did this with U. Mass students in personality psychology). But, I am always sceptical of market psychology which distorts the investigations by generalizing something like “self esteem” ….Kaufman’s chapter on “Deliberate Practice” puts hope in context with motivation, self efficacy, self regulation and the like.
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I can’t imagine any self-respecting high school student taking a poll like this seriously. It would be awkward and weird to be given a poll at school about personal attitudes and social life, and undoubtably many students would not give earnest answers, thus invalidating the data.
Engineers and businessmen have declared that every endeavor must be measurable and quantifiable. But children are not an engineering problem or a balance sheet. Trying to measure the social and emotional factors of high school is laughable. How far does the testing madness have to go before people wake up to reality?
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I am a BIG fan of Starr and his desire not to use test scores to evaluate teachers. Instead of VAM Montgomery uses PAR. And while I am in favor of finding a way to evaluate students other than “passing a standardized test”, I doubt Gallop or any other “let’s make money off education” company can come up with a measurement better than a teacher. And the fact that DFER approves this makes me weary.
We need to measure progress: Teachers know if a child has shown improvement even though they didn’t “pass” the test. Children have different level of learning, and no matter what mandates you put on a school, you can’t put that on a child.
We also know if a child has progressed emotionally or socially. We can see it in their behaviors.
We also know if a child who never applied themselves are more motivated. We see that through classwork, homework. And even if test scores are not improving as well as we would like, we know this is a child that may need a referral and in time will catch up.
Hope??? While teachers can instill love of learning and a sense things in life can get better, we still can’t effect what goes on in the home. Hope or lack of is also a factor of the economy. Let’s keep in mind that education is first a journey and not all students reach their “destinations” at the same time. But emotional and social growth is also a journey in life as it is with adults who are still embarking on that journey.
What schools can do is provide a “haven” for all children. Schools should be a place children want to come to every day. It doesn’t and shouldn’t be just about the academics. Students also need fun and a creative outlet. They also need a place that will provide them with services–whether it be remedial, social, psychological or medical. A place where they have an outlet to express their problems and concerns. And that should extend to their families as well because the student is part of a family unit. And that can lead to a better future for the child, the family and the community.
So instead of wasting precious money on Gallop, look to see where that money can better be used.
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Can we remember that Gallup Poll was so wrong about the 2012 election and Mitt Romney’s chances. So let’s not put too much faith in Josh Starr’s gamble with Gallup.
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Good point Gail. The fact that this study is costing almost a million dollars should have taxpayers being polled.
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Enough of the tests, polls, reflections. How is a test to measure the overall psycho-social health of the students going to help? It will not reliably identify individuals nor is that the intention of such a poll. Teachers and other staff members, both professional and support, have been identifying at risk kids for decades. Whether they are paid attention to or not is another matter. When they find out that 20% haven’t smiled today what in the %#@!! are they going to do with that information? Issue another mandate? A poll is never going to take the place of the dedicated professional (and support staff) who are losing their jobs to machines that generate meaningless data. I have yet to find a computer that will sit and listen to a student cry. Joshua Starr may have his heart in the right place, but he needs to rethink his tools especially since schools have an uncomfortable habit lately of invading the privacy of students.
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Perhaps Joshua Starr is trying to take a step in, what he feels is, a better direction.
While that is commendable I question why we feel we need to measure everything.
I am in awe of my students’ intellectual, social, emotional complexity and potential. There’s is no way I can possibly “measure” these qualities in my students. All attempts at measurement are narrow, insensitive and, in effect, insulting to the very students we are trying to measure.
There are just some things which cannot be measured. Our human ability and subsequent testing instruments in this regard simply fall short.
Until we can come to grips with our human limitations we will persist in creating initiatives, like testing programs, that continue to spread incalculable misery, wasting precious time, resources, and the human potential that is within our ability to advance.
As my students would say, “We need to get over ourselves and deal with it.”
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University of Kansas researchers found that it is possible to measure hope, and that this is a better predictor of whether a student will graduate than a college entrance score.
Sorry they are spending any $ to develop a survey. There already is a Hope Survey available that has lots of research to support it.
Here’s a link to an article from Phi Delta Kappan on this:
Click to access Growing-Hope-PDK-1.pdf
Both district & charters already are using the Hope Survey to help assess how well a school, overall is doing in assisting young people to develop attitudes and skills necessary for setting and working toward their individual goals.
http://www.hopesurvey.org/supporting-research
http://www.hopesurvey.org/
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Measuring “hope” is best left to the knowledge and professional observations of the classroom teacher since test measurement in this area is fraught with error.
Oh but wait, no matter, more tests will line the pockets of the corporate test machine instead of dealing with the issues of poverty which would actually foster “hope” in our children.
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Hope should be nothing but a precursor to action. Without action hope is an empty promise.
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Agreed, hope without action is empty. As defined in the Hope Survey (and other work from EdVisons, which promised the Hope Survey, hope includes action.
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